Arlington Ridge Road
North Arlington Ridge Road was eliminated in the early 1960s when interchanges and connections for the Theodore Roosevelt Bridge were constructed.
At the time of European encounter, the inhabitants of the area that became Arlington County were the Doeg, an Algonquian-speaking sub-group of the Powhatan tribal confederation.
[1] Colonists from England usurped Native American title to the land, and began creating their own political divisions on the area in the 1600s.
[7] In 1790, Congress enacted the Residence Act, which provided for the seat of the United States federal government to be sited on the Potomac River.
[8] The Organic Act placed the incorporated towns of Washington, D.C.; Georgetown, D.C. and Alexandria, Virginia, under the direct control of Congress.
moved out of Mount Vernon and into an existing four-room house on some marshy flats on the Potomac River estate.
Mount Washington was too small to be self-supporting as a working farm, so Custis sought to make Arlington into a family seat — complete with a large park, a forest, and gardens.
[20] In late 1803 or early 1804, Custis hired local architect George Hadfield to design the remainder of his mansion on the hill.
[21] Construction had already begun on the south wing of the mansion by this time,[22] so Hadfield contributed mainly to the center section.
[25] The first known road through what would eventually become Arlington County was a barely-cleared path through the forest along what is now the Henry G. Shirley Memorial Highway.
Created in 1743, it began near Glebe Road and continued roughly northeast until it reached the ferry landing near what is now Virginia State Route 110.
At the outbreak of the American Civil War, Robert E. Lee resigned his commission and joined the army of the Confederate States of America.
[29] South of the estate, north of what is now Overlook Park, Fort Albany was built on the side of Arlington Ridge Road.
[30] Extensive horse and mule corrals were built east of the road (near the current Visitors Center and parking lots and the area just south of them).
[32] Freedmen's Village, a housing development for escaped slaves ("contraband") and free blacks, was constructed in May 1863 the very southern part of the estate immediately west of Arlington Ridge Road.
[33] East across Arlington Ridge Road from Freedmen's Village was Hell's Bottom,[34] a 37.5-acre (152,000 m2) site at the foot of the Long Bridge.
[40] This boundary wall was built along Arlington Ridge Road, making the street the de facto eastern border of the cemetery.
[46] By the 1930s, a middle-class black neighborhood known as Queen City had grown up west of Arlington Ridge Road and south of Columbia Pike.
Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes and United States Commission of Fine Arts chairman Gilmore David Clarke both considered the site inappropriate, and convinced President Franklin D. Roosevelt to not only halve the size of the proposed building but also shift the site to that of the inadequate and dangerous Washington-Hoover Airport (which the government was trying to close anyway).
[47] During World War II, additional changes were made to Arlington Ridge Road and the surrounding area.
Additional changes came after 1947, when Congress appropriated money to purchase the Nevius Tract (now Arlington Ridge Park).
Most of North Arlington Ridge Road was eliminated in the early 1960s when interchanges and connections for the Theodore Roosevelt Bridge were constructed.
Most drivers no longer used the road to access Arlington Memorial Bridge, preferring to use the highways to the east.
On February 6 of that year, Martin Luther King Jr., Roman Catholic Bishop James P. Shannon, Reverend Ralph Abernathy, Rabbi Maurice Eisendrath, and Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel led 2,000 people down Arlington Ridge Road in a protest against the Vietnam War.
[57] As of 2013, the cemetery's winding Eisenhower Avenue largely follows the path of the straight Arlington Ridge Road.
It remained a four-lane street passing through light retail and residential districts in the Arlington Ridge community.
It hosted a large number of famous individuals, such as Amelia Earhart, Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., and Eleanor Roosevelt.
In March 1983, residents of the area petitioned the Arlington County Board to reduce the width of the street from four lanes to two in an attempt to slow traffic.
In 1891, the Hume School was built on Arlington Ridge Road to serve elementary school-age children in the area.
[65] Arlington Ridge Road also plays a part in author Annie Solomon's 2006 spy thriller novel Blackout,[66] and the opening shots of the 1987 murder mystery film No Way Out feature a long helicopter shot that travels along Arlington Ridge Road.
